Thursday, 27 March 2008

Well this post exclusively is dedicated to the team mates kunal, kartik. and sanky for all the support you have provided me. Evidently now that it comes on my birthday so let it be my return gift to you all for the support you have given me all the time.

Thankyou kunal for reaffirming the fact that two rugged, ruined ,"indianish" thinkers added means more more discussions & no output but potentially high output in future (the theory of hope confirms this fact).

Thankyou kartik for coming back to us after your ******* stint. You have always made me realise my importance to IMC and always supporting the best alternative, i am sure ur potential with numbers will make us ENRON one day(minus the breakdown).

Thankyou sankalp for being the best friend i had always wanted .always had wanted you to realise that we(imc) are totally inseperable for the critique in you will always keep us grounded and for making us aware of the crude reality and personaly for getting the best of me.And for reasons untold i do envy you.

So let us get on with it and take a resolution to be "the implementers".

And i really liked the winnie , i know it resembles me but dunno in what sense.cheers

Friday, 30 November 2007

Ma second blog comes after 6 months! Phew! Long time .this is my platform where I express myself so let me take on the babas of India .I am writing this now that I have felt people have placed so called “religion” over themselves. Now I really feel about 90% of the world doesn’t think, they’ll never do that, particularly when you have these babas doing the thinking work for you.India poised to become one of the biggest economies of the world growing at 10%+ ,I am sure the baba industry is doing 10 times better ,future sees India not as software outsourcing but a baba outsourcing hub. And the service this industry provides- the path to God !!In this blog I analyze how different babas provide different consultancies for this jobIn India we have had all kinda gurus from yoga guru Baba ramdev to common mans guru Ram Rahim (sacha sauda fame) to the refreshingly commercialized sri*2 Ravi Shankar (art of living fame) to the spiritexual OSHO(bhagwan sri Rajneesh) and finally internationally famed maharishi Mahesh yogi who practices transcendental medicine technique. After media made him a household name for his yoga techniques, he now tells you how to run a business ,advices dhoni to play, and what not ,and and and don’t accuse him of doing that ,he’s a celebrity now! And yes he also claims to cure AIDS, dunno what the screwd up scientists are doing in the shitty labs , this man has cured AIDS!!!!! He charges 2400 for his 2 day camp and yes this camp is not “commercialized”! At a time when millions of Indians are suffering from every health problem prevalent in the world this guy goes to UK and teaches yoga there, you know why? “the phoren wala baba” tag helps him increase his camp fees.Guru Ram Rahim , dera sacha sauda has its share of followers in Punjab and Haryana; I am writing about him because my dadi and a lot many followers are from ma home town and that he acquired national fame after his spat with the Sikhs on the khalsa issue.Incidentally ,once I had the fortune (mis)of listening to one of his lectures and you know he’s cool and calm and after 20 seconds of his previous statements’ pause says “bhagwan ek hai,oh saareyan di takdeer da malik hai”( god is one ,he’s the creator of everyone’s destiny) !!! Looks like his followers never had the moral science lectures I had in my KG’s.And yes the famous sri square ravi Shankar, he runs the famous Art of living course now adopted by many in the Indian Universities. Another camp which is not “commercialized “now have raised their camp fee from 1500 to 2500. Looking at this kind of inflation, it seems attaining so called godliness (art of living) , is gonna be a more expensive stuff.And then yes my favorite OSHO urff bhagwan sri Rajneesh. Popularly known as the sex guru he’s one such “learned” man running the famous meditation retreat at Pune, where he used to advice people to have sex, laugh, drop all superstitious, and free themselves from worldly matters .Recently I had the chance to listen to one of his audio files on the word “fuck”, and really impressed me .Has his share of controversies for having such open thoughts about sex and stuff and for driving a Rolce Royce every day, gifted by his devotees.Baba Mahesh yogi resides in Finland now and is one with International repute.The rule of economics says when one industry is flourishing , lot many competitors enter the market and hence the profits of subsequent firms starts to diminish. I guess this industry has and will continue to defy this rule.Moral of the story (for my fellow BITSians):: unsatisfied with your boss and wanna be an entrepreneur? Be a baba and realize your potential .We BITSians are born smart, aren’t we?

Sunday, 6 May 2007

It’s been long since I wanted to write a blog on my experience working for IMConfuzed.com ,but it’s now that my acct. is created, and interestingly this happens to be my first post.By the way IMConfuzed.com happens to OUR BUSINESSPLAN (the team consisting of kunal (group leader as it was his brain child), kartik , sanky and myself.)It all started with EPSILON- the intrabits bplan competition (around oasis in October) when we were to submit an idea which could become a successful business proposition in future.The initial team consisting of kartik, kunal and nakul got two of their plans selected (i was part of the other group and none of ideas got selected!!!!!)Their first was "feeel"- based on condom vending machines(those present during the epsilon workshops would surely remember nakul's pitch in to a bitsian audience of about 50 students, and things like people being shy to buy condoms from the chemist coming up ,the questions by audience on the same and nakul's witty answers, it was ultimate and he cracked it)The second was IMConfuzed.com based on counselling was ranked 12th on idea pitching round .And later when it was out of the competition (executive Summary round, the team mates felt really disappointed especially kunal who had worked a lot on the plan and because our competitor "illumnati" was 4th which was on almost the same lines )I joined in after the holz of sem1 when they had to submit the idea in conquest(international bplan competition organized by bits), and worked on the presentation of the executive summary .Nakul had backed out by then citing his lack of interest in the bplan .Kunal, during the same time had been submitting the executive summary for different bplan competitions one of them being for IIITM, Gwalior. It was on march 1 that we came to know that we had been selected in the top four, our competitors being1IIT BOMBAY2.FMS DELHI3.IMT GHAZIABADWE were really thrilled that we had got this opportunity (ofcource the prize money was significant- 15k)it was then that real working started we had 7 days and had the job was of taking the plan from 5 page exec. Summ. to 37 page bplan.Then most of the team members had to go home because of some reason or the other I was left alone(at a point i thought , at this critical juncture, why do all these guys have to go home), it then turned out to be in our favor as1.kunal was able to get important statistics on web companies from Ludhiana.2.kartik was able to convince his instituteVMC to sponsor us.3.sanky was able to convince viresh, (doing web designing in Jaipur)to do the same for us.When they came back we had a lot of discussion to do and started discussion sessions on strategy implementation (since kartik was about to come late we thought it better not to tell him about the strategy because more the discussion , slower the work ) .The last 2 days we just had the job of typing to do (and surveys which due to lack of time were cooked up ,I remember sitting the last day in kunal’s room , all four of us doing the typing work on different lapis, me gussing classes(that’s nothing new for me!),reaching workshop ½ hours late, and all crap stuff), but doing all this gave me a sense of satisfaction(I realized “ main bits main padhne ke liye nahin aaya hoon”)

We somehow managed it before 6 in the morn of 9th and we mailed it.

The very next day we left for Gwalior, via Delhi with Nikhil joining us for the same. On 11th we reached there, Gwalior sucked but IIIT ROCKED, it was a beautiful campus , also the hospitality, (especially our hostess kanupriya(I felt that god is somewhat partial to kanupriyas , how come all of them look good))which deserves a special mention. That day , we could not take part in any of the events of their tech. festival becausewe were somehow busywith the slidemaking(though most of us took it light) . and kunal will surely remember him getting raped(I mean not actually),by sanky and kartik for his theories like

1.Her ladki meri behen hai , even admits to being brother to his crush , if she wants so

3.His saying to a coolie “bhaiya isko samaan uthane do”, when we actually paying the coolie

Cant really imagine such idealists do exist in todays world!

Then we slept

The next day when we woke up, we came to know that iit and fms had not come so our competition was somewhat reduced but still the big players were IMT, who we came to know had prepared a good presentation for the next day, also they were the management guys so they knew lot about management then we did. Next day was the presentation, and we were not properly prepared(I should not have used the word properly here).

We always followed last day syndrome,(completing everything by the last day);company tradition as they say

Then came the presentation ,we were a bit scared (I was forgetting what I had crammed up)

Nikhil started with an introduction, followed by kunal(bahut tension mein tha, when he came to knowthe team would not be given a minute over 15,was his usual same using funtoosh slangs, and mixing hindi wordslike “mallab ki” ,”lekin”,sanky was pretty ok,though wish he had prepared, I spoke a lot and took unusually long time which did not give kartik the adequate time to complete the financials and he was so so depressed(as he is many times), and so it seemed we screwed it.

Then came the question –answer session.

It began with the judges asking who is a V.C., and we had nothing to answer. (when I thought nobody was speaking I took the name of some noted entrepreneurs like kiran majumdar shaw,birlas and what not)

Also when they asked questions like whos going to prepare the aptitude tests,who will conduct the counseling sessions ,I just had one answer for the questions (dr E. LEELA ROUT, my psychology teacher at BITS, and my team giving me a look like from where the hell did he get this name,so eventually I became the “cook up god” because none of my team members had slightest of ideas what , when and how was I going to cook up). But the highlight of that session was the vmc papers which kartik was able to get, but even that didn’t turn out to be so well.

We came out of the room dejected , disappointed, and disgusted, blaming each other on what the other had done ,heads and shoulders were dropping on what we had done( I personally got the impression that we were good for nothing

Then one of the judges came out of the hall ‘looked at us ‘ gave us a smile, and said “GOOD PRESENTATION”.WE looked at each other’s face thinking “was he joking?”

Then the imt guys came out and they were abusing the judges b.c , m.c and all’

Suddenly hope struck us , we thought that we could win ,all of a sudden life came back on our faces.

That night we went to the sunset center and we enjoyed there, took rides and all crap stuff, followed by dinner and then came back, other guys slept, I had made some friends in IITM and I was up with them talking about their personal lives and discussing the disadvantages of doing engineering, (no good girls in your coll.)

Then the next day we were up by 11 and had no specific plans when to get up etc. had return tickets of that night, but wanted to go to Delhi .the morning itself, but couldn’t manage it..

Thenaround 12.30 ,me and kartik were going to their computer center to do some netto join other guys, when the announcer was announcing the results

It was like “the results of pioneer(our hearts thumping faster)are out, first are(a near heart attack)-IMCONFUZED.COM

We just couldn’t believe our ears, we had comefirst!!!!

Then we hugged and were simply out of our mind.

We informed kunal, sanky, and Nikhil ,and they were equally elated. They started jumping with excitement (Something which reminded of my childhood when we just never used to care what the world thinks about us, somehow as adults we become conditioned to behave in an orderly fashion)

It was an awesome feeling, the feeling of triumph, it just lights u up , u seem conquer the world. At that point I wanted to go wild , out of my mind, unconquered,

but since my other team members are not like that(esp. kunal), I had to bring down on my high

Then we thanked all of our friends them(our friends wingies nakul, chetan ,tridib ,akanksha(her chocolates had really proved to BE good luck for us) and apna mittal (the foot tap maker), he had really supported us(the ipo .corporation thing)

we also said thnx to iitm guys for their awesome hospitality(special thnx to my friends akul, and rohit, u rock!)

and left gwalior.

ON our way back to delhi we met a major who had been posted in j&k for most of his life

He then told about his experiences in the army. Man , these guys do really awesome job. They have an awesomely adventurous and intense life. He told us numerous experiences of his army life,i still remember his incident which he described as

i felt let me guss enggineering, l and let me go for a ssc in the army.we all think of getting a good cgpa a good placement ,hard cash in pocket,but doesnt matter.what matters is to live the life of significance.

if you can die with your head held high and saying" i did my job", thats worth it

For quite some time we got the feeling of being “INDIANS”’, the spirit of Indianness, the feeling that you owe this nation a lot.

During most of my boarding army school life , I had never got such feeling of responsibility towards my nation

We reached delhi by 9 and parted ways ,I went to my friend puppy in iitdelhi. the next day , I had a blastwith him. And then I reached pilani one day after they had reached,

That ended the trip, but I will really remember it for the invaluable memories it gave me which I am going to carry with me throughout my life